France and England in North America, Part V: Count Frontenac, New France, Louis XIVParkman, Francis
History
France and England in North America, Part V: Count Frontenac, New France, Louis XIV
Parkman, Francis
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Frontenac, Louis de Buade, comte de, 1620-1698
The wish of King Louis was fulfilled. A good profit had been made out of
the enemy. The victors withdrew into the forest with their plunder and
their prisoners, among whom were several old women and a number of
children from three to seven years old. These, with a forbearance which
does them credit, they permitted to return uninjured to the nearest
fortified house, in requital, it is said, for the lives of a number of
Indian children spared by the English in a recent attack on the
Androscoggin. The wife of the minister was allowed to go with them; but
her son remained a prisoner, and the agonized mother went back to the
Indian camp to beg for his release. They again permitted her to return;
but, when she came a second time, they told her that, as she wanted to be
a prisoner, she should have her wish. She was carried with the rest to
their village, where she soon died of exhaustion and distress. One of the
warriors arrayed himself in the gown of the slain minister, and preached
a mock sermon to the captive parishioners. [18]
[18] The best French account of the capture of York is that of Champigny
in a letter to the minister, 5 Oct., 1692. His information came from an
Abenaki chief, who was present. The journal of Villebon contains an
exaggerated account of the affair, also derived from Indians. Compare the
English accounts in Mather, Williamson, and Niles. These writers make the
number of slain and captives much less than that given by the French. In
the contemporary journal of Rev. John Pike, it is placed at 48 killed and
73 taken.
Two fortified houses of this period are still (1875) standing at York.
They are substantial buildings of squared timber, with the upper story
projecting over the lower, so as to allow a vertical fire on the heads of
assailants. In one of them some of the loopholes for musketry are still
left open. They may or may not have been originally enclosed by
palisades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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